Mamata goes on a musical journey

After popularising Rabindra Sangeet at traffic signals in Kolkata, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee has apparently impressed upon her protégé Mukul Roy to make train journeys more musical.

The railway minister and Railway Board officials are in talks with All India Radio (AIR) to offer the best selections from their archives.

The first of the test runs for the archival collection from AIR will be in the Shatabdis and Rajdhanis.

VIP privilege

BJP leader L.K. Advani

For reasons termed 'unknown' by the railway ministry, security personnel recently travelling with senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader L.K. Advani could not get reserved seats.

As a result, the BJP veteran had to miss out on some engagements.

The lapse is being attributed to rail officials, who have now been asked to explain.

It is possible that they will face punitive action, as it happened when some MPs from Bihar were accommodated in AC second class instead of AC first class they were entitled to. VIP privileges certainly do matter here.

Define family

What is the definition of 'parivar'? The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday wanted 'parivar' defined after home minister P. Chidambaram stated that he and his family members were not involved in the Aircel-Maxis deal.

When reporters asked for Congress spokesperson Manish Tewary's response to the BJP's demand, he sarcastically said if the saffron party could consult the Oxford dictionary or even the Webster's legal dictionary for the meaning of the word.

Cong attacks Sinha

The Congress party on Thursday
attacked Yashwant Sinha for raising the Aircel-Maxis deal controversy
when the matter is before the joint parliamentary committee (JPC) which
is expected to meet in a week.

'I do hope that the former finance
minister will really reflect about the propriety of raising the matter
in the House when all these issues are before the JPC,' said Congress
spokesperson Manish Tewary.

According to him, it is a convention
that matters which are under examination of the JPC or any parliamentary
committee or are sub judice are not raised in the House

Help for farmers

Over the past few days, many senior non-Congress leaders in the Lok Sabha such as Sushma Swaraj, Sharad Yadav, Mulayam Singh Yadav and Lalu Prasad have raised the problems faced by farmers in Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.

Though belated, Congress managers in their bid to grab credit, brought farmers' delegations from Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab to meet party president Sonia Gandhi. The farmers wanted help on several issues and briefed both Sonia Gandhi and party general secretary Rahul Gandhi.

The Congress president promised the farmers that she would take up their cause with the government.